In any case, the frequency response has clearly been smoothed out to allow for deep linear extension, though at the cost of a rather modest sensitivity of 87 decibels per watt per meter. The flip side of the coin is a high demand on the amplifier’s power, stability, and quality. Storgaard & Vestskov recommends at least 30 watts, but for sufficient headroom depending on room size, I would suggest at least 50 to 80 watts, and a high damping factor certainly doesn’t hurt either. This, of course, ruled out all of my tube amplifiers from the start. For this review I borrowed a refurbished Einstein ‘The Amp’ MkII solid-state integrated amplifier from a friend — an amp I once owned and loved, and one I know inside out. As one would expect for a loudspeaker of this size, the design is a rear-vented bass reflex. Fortunately, it is not a restless air pump, meaning placement close to the wall is possible without booming effects. In my case, a distance of about half a meter from the rear wall proved optimal. The connection terminal is equipped with WBT connectors, and the hybrid internal wiring, silver-plated copper conductors, comes from Van den Hul.

I don’t think I’ve ever described my listening room before, probably because I rarely review loudspeakers. But with Frida, I felt it was necessary. She had to contend with my somewhat over 50-square-meter, L-shaped room, where I initially placed the loudspeakers about a meter out from the roughly four-meter-wide rear wall at the ‘living room end.’ The spacing between the two Frida twins was about two and a half meters center-to-center, with a slight toe-in toward my listening position three meters away. My house is timber-frame construction: the inner walls are OSB panels covered with textured wallpaper, the floor is parquet, and the continuous wooden ceiling features numerous beams that act like diffusers. On the floor, a few faux sheepskins are scattered about for our dogs to play on. So even without any special acoustic treatment, my averagely furnished room with its manageable glass and window areas (fitted with light curtains and pleated blinds) and a few larger houseplants sounds damn good. There are no pronounced room modes, nor are there Acoustic System resonators, just for the record. Just lived-in room acoustics. In this setup, Frida already sounded very open and free from any compression effects, which encouraged me to move the speakers gradually closer to the rear wall to gain a bit more low end weight. At about half a meter distance, the balance was ideal. Overall, this Danish loudspeaker proved to be refreshingly uncritical in terms of placement.

One striking characteristic of this loudspeaker seemed to be its constant focus on the music itself. This became apparent to me while listening to Joy Division’s “New Dawn Fades” (Unknown Pleasures, Factory, 1979). In the late 1970s, it was common practice for bands to record live in the studio. Producer Martin Hannett, however, chose to record drums and vocals separately in order to achieve the cleanest, most isolated sound possible. He even went so far as to dismantle the drum kit, recording each piece individually for later processing. The result was the now-famous ‘Martin Hannett reverb,’ with its rehearsal-room or bathroom-like ambiance. On this track, the effect is especially pronounced, and the Storgaard & Vestskov Frida rendered it with an unmistakable presence in the foreground. The sound of these loudspeakers was marked by crystalline clarity without ever coming across as analytical or sterile. Rather, it seemed as if no sonic artifacts whatsoever were standing in the way, provided the recording allowed it. Fascinating!